


And If You Want To Buy Me Flowers

by MsJackofAllFandoms



Series: Five Songs, Five Ficlets [6]
Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Flowers, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Mutual Pining, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26855812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsJackofAllFandoms/pseuds/MsJackofAllFandoms
Summary: Five Songs, Five Ficlets challenge.Fic #6:“Brian,” Roger had said, watching as his tall friend straightened up from where he’d been bent over smelling a flower bed full of gorgeous red roses, “I promise I will buy you as many flowers as you like for your next birthday, but we really have to leave now.”Brian sighed and then looked at the flower beds forlornly. “Alright, I’m coming. I’m going to hold you to that, though.” He’d said it with a smile, a huffed out laugh, clearly joking.
Relationships: Brian May/Roger Taylor
Series: Five Songs, Five Ficlets [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948186
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	And If You Want To Buy Me Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Yes. Yes, 6 fics for the 5 Song, 5 Fic challenge. Remember when I said the random number generator gave me two number 4s? Well, in all of the confusion, I ended up with 6 fics without realising it until I'd written them all.
> 
> So.  
>  _Five Songs, Five Ficlets._ I did this challenge in according to how I remembered the rules.  
> \- Put your music player on random  
> \- Write down the first five songs. No repeats of songs, no repeats of bands. Repeats of pairings are okay.  
> \- Assign each song a pairing (or gen) - You can use give each pairing a number then use a random number generator.  
> \- The ficlets don’t have to be based on the title, it can be based on the theme of the song or a lyric inside the song.
> 
> Fic #6:- Based on the lyrics of Two Princes by The Spin Doctors, "And if you want to buy me flowers, just go ahead now."

_“Brian,” Roger had said, watching as his tall friend straightened up from where he’d been bent over smelling a flower bed full of gorgeous red roses, “I promise I will buy you as many flowers as you like for your next birthday, but we really have to leave now.”_

_Brian sighed and then looked at the flower beds forlornly. “Alright, I’m coming. I’m going to hold you to that, though.” He’d said it with a smile, a huffed out laugh, clearly joking._

_But, well, you could say the seed had been planted that day._

He’d been intimidated by all the flowers in the shop when he first went inside. They had been on tiered shelving on the floor, on shelves on the wall, a whole wall had a flower holder like card shops displayed cards, and there was an area for hanging baskets and trees. In the back corner by the counter, Roger had noticed bowls of water with pretty flowers floating on top. He thought Freddie particularly would like one of those.

But he wasn’t there for Freddie. He was there for Brian. He was there to buy some flowers for Brian. Because Brian was going through a hard time, he’d moved into a horrible flat that, whilst spacious, was cold and sparse and all cinderblock corners with no warmth, and he needed cheering up. And damnit, Brian _liked_ flowers so he deserved some flowers to brighten his day, and the flat, up.

It was not weird for one man to buy another man, his best friend, flowers, Roger told himself. The problem was that he’d never done this before he thought, then concluded that his problem was his lack of forethought and lack of generosity and not thinking of doing this before. The fact that he had feelings for said best friend was neither here nor there. _It was completely irrelevant._

So he’d wandered around the sea of flowers, the smell could have been overpowering but they weren’t. They were gentle and fresh and some smelt like summer. Just exactly what Brian needed right now. A red and purple rose bouquet caught his eye, far left end of the row. Just by looking at them, Roger knew Brain would love them. It costed a whopping £48 and he handed the money over gladly. And now he found himself walking up the path to the newly built low rise block of flats, which was as dreary on the outside as it was on the inside, with the outer walls made up of knobbly stoned concrete and uniformed windows. He pressed the buzzer to be let in. It took a few minutes for Brian to respond. 

“Hello?” Brian said, throat dry, probably through lack of use. 

“Hi, it’s me.”  
  
“Oh! I wasn’t expecting you, come on up.”

The door buzzed to signal he’d been let in and pushing down the urge to throw the flowers across the carpark at the last minute, went inside. The lobby reminded Roger of that of a hospital, and the only thing going for it were the twin lifts. Brian lived on the second floor, and he did not enjoy walking up them when the second week of Brian lived there, the lifts were out due to an electrical fault. Roger had tried to get him to move in with him, or even Freddie, but Brian wouldn’t have it.

Divorce did funny things to one’s self worth, and bank balance. 

He knocked on the inner door to Brian’s flat and was let in straight away. He had nowhere to panic ditch the flowers even if he wanted to, and couldn’t anyway because Brian was now staring right at him. Brain flicked his eyes down to he bouquet and looked up in confusion, but didn’t say anything about them.

“Hello, I wasn’t expecting you.” Brian was wearing his blue tartan pyjama bottoms and his AC/DC Tshirt with the hole in the hem. Brian May turned looking sleepy into an art form. It was, Roger dared to think, a sight to see.

Roger shook himself and barged in with fake bravado, then closed the door behind him. “Did you put the kettle on?” He walked down Brian’s hallway into the kitchen. Brain followed slowly after him.

“Er… No, sorry, had to tidy up the mess.” 

Roger waved him off before Brian could really start apologising, and picked up the kettle. Then he realised his dilemma. He still had hold of the flowers making the two handed task of filling the kettle up difficult.

“Ah,” He said, looking between the flowers and the kettle. He put the kettle back down and turned to Brian, who was standing at the entrance of the kitchen. “Err…”

“Hmm?” Brian asked, looking somewhere between baffled and amused.

“These are for you.”

He stepped a few steps forwards and awkwardly held them out to Brian, like he’d suddenly turned into an awkward fourteen year old. And he’d _never been_ an awkward fourteen year old in the first place. Brian came forward and met the outstretched bouquet of flowers with both of his hands. 

“Oh goodness!” He said, looking down at them, seeing them properly. “Who are these off?”

“Um… me.”

Brian’s head snapped up. “You? You bought me flowers?”

Roger scratched the back of his neck and fought the urge to shuffle. Brian was looking at him in pleasant surprise. His mouth was open in a small smile, and he brought the bouquet, which he held gently in his hands, closer to them. 

“It’s not even my birthday.” Brian’s face faltered. “Wait, is this a joke? Were they somehow left by a fan by the door or something?”

Roger shook his head. “No! No, I really did… buy you flowers. Do you, um… like them?”

Brian smiled again and smelt the flowers deeply. “Oh, yes, they’re wonderful, yes. Thank you. What have I done to deserve flowers?”

 _Well, you see, you were born, learnt how to play guitar, built your own guitar, created a band, changed my life, are the kindest person I’ve ever known, a sensitive soul who is going through a heartbreaking divorce because you and Chrissie married too young and grew to be completely different people, and you moved into an awful soul-less flat in the arse-end of Clapham and rung me two days ago, three sheets to the wind, almost in tears, because too much was changing in too short a time for you. And i love you, you giant fool, you who understands long division, and knows the density of a dying star but forgets to eat and forgets the shopping list everytime you go to the shops and you’d forget your guitar if the roadies didn’t hand it to you as you went on stage. Everything, Brian May, You have done_ everything _to deserve flowers, everything you do, you deserve flowers._

“I just thought you’d like them,” was Roger’s cowardly reply. “Make your day a bit brighter, and this flat too...”

Brain nodded, “They will. They do. I…” He smelt them again, and really put his face right into the petals. “They really are lovely.”

“And you don’t even have to bend 90 degrees to smell them!”

Brian laughed, and it was the lightest, most real laugh Roger had heard from him in weeks. Roger busied himself with the kettle, trying to hide his pleased smile, as Brian sorted the dining room table out, moving various writing session clutter out of the way so that the flowers could stand in the middle. The best light that Brian could get in the flat was the kitchen window, but mostly midday to the early evening, so it would be a couple of hours yet before the room really brightened up. The flowers, Roger was proud to find, really did make a difference. It was small, but, noticeable.

Brain gently brushed his fingers amongst the petals of the roses and then fiddled with the white spray. “This was really so thoughtful of you, Rog. Thank you.”

Roger felt his face go over all warm, so he turned to get Brian’s tea set from the lower cupboard as he told Brian he was very welcome. He then waited for the kettle to whistle as he watched Brian looking at the flowers.

The whistle startled them both out of their reveries, and Roger set to putting teabags and the boiled water into the teapot, and then the teapot and teacups on to the wooden tray, followed by the milk out of the fridge, then carried the tray to the table, where he did the reverse, but held off on pouring the tea just yet. It wouldn’t be infused enough. 

“What have you been do-”  
“I was thinking of going-”

They stopped as soon as they started, realising they were walking at the same time. 

“Sorry.”  
  
“No, you go first.”  
  
Roger gestured to the kitchen. “Your flat, you go first.”  
  
Brain sighed and rolled his eyes. “You always have far more interesting things to say than I do, you go first.”  
  
“That’s not true!” Roger actually felt hurt at Brian’s words, even though they were directed at Brian himself, and his tone of voice reflected that. “That is not true at all.” Suddenly cruel words over the years, the rolled eyes, the moments before interviews all crashed into Roger’s mind. “Oh, no, Bri, I know me and Deaky pretend we get bored half the time you speak, but we’re only messing about! We’re not serious!”

Brain scoffed and rolled his eyes, “I know I can go on a bit, Roger, it’s fine. I’m used to it. Not everyone finds space and the science behind light fascinating like I do. But, please, what were you going to say?”

Not wanting to argue for the sake of keeping the peace, Roger indulged the request. “I was just gonna say, I was thinking of going to that market in oxford some time. Do you want to come with me?” 

Brain considered the request. “I’m not sure, Rog, I’ve never thought about going there.”

Roger shrugged, “Well, it’s an open invitation. I’ll remind you when I plan a day.”

Brian nodded deeply. “Okay. Thank you.”

“No problem. Now, you go?”

Brain laughed lightly through his nose. “Well, I was just asking, what have you been doing since I saw you last?”

Roger considered his answer whilst he went to pour the tea out at last. There was a method to it that he’d perfected. Brain could make tea, he was a fine tea maker, but Roger, in his outspoken opinion, did it better. Freddie liked doing it, but he was better with loose leaf tea and his fancy tea (and evidently his pot tea) rather than tea bags, and Deaky’s tea was made in cups and he always put too much milk in and that’s why Deaky had not made him a cup of tea in 18 months. 

He passed one cup to Brian and took the other for himself. The sugar was already in a little bowl on Brian’s dining table, now near to Brian, so after Brian put his sugar in his tea, he passed it over to Roger so he could put his in his tea.

It was so domestic, Roger’s heart could have ached. 

“You mean all that long time ago of three days?” He quipped, “Errr… Not much. Saw Debbie and the kids, talked to you on the phone, had a clear out of gone off food, hired a new house keeper, er, that takes me up to today.” He took a sip of his tea. Perfect, just the way he liked it.

Brian looked at the flowers again at the reminder of them being there. He suddenly stood up and walked around the table. Roger watched him and automatically leant back a bit as Brian loomed. He knew Brian never meant to loom, but the bloke was over six foot, and Roger was sitting down. “Er....”

Brian enveloped him in a hug. Brain’s arms completely encircled his shoulders and he even leant down a bit and was hunched over Roger’s head. It couldn't have been the most comfortable position for Brian, but Roger was finding himself suddenly pleasantly warm. 

“Erm…” Roger lifted his left arm to pat Brian’s. 

“People don’t give you enough credit for how lovely you are.” Brain mumbled. 

And then Brian kissed him on the head.

Brian. Kissed him. On the head. 

Roger wasn’t sure how to take that. Him and Brian weren’t the kissing sort of friends, but then before today, they also weren’t the “Buy each other flowers” type of friends either, and here they were. But he tried not to get his hopes up, after all, it wasn’t a snog, it was just on his head, through his hair. Very soft and gentle.

Brain gave him a little squeeze and let go, and Roger already felt bereft. He sipped more at his tea to warm him back up again, but it wasn’t as good. 

But Brian didn’t go too far. As a matter of fact, all Brian did was straighten up, he didn’t move away or go back to sitting down on the opposite side of the table. Brian kept standing by Roger’s side. Roger hesitantly looked up. Brain was looking down. 

“I hope that wasn’t… too forward?”

Roger burst out with a laugh. Only Brian May could think a nice gentle kiss on the head was ‘too forward’. “No. No, Bri, no, that, er, wasn’t too forward. No.”

“Good, because I’d wanted to do that for, oh, _years._ ”

And then Brian- Brain May, the man Roger had been in love with for years, sat down back in the chair opposite him and smiled brightly at the flowers again before picking up his tea and taking a long drink from it. 

“Well if that’s how you react, I might have to buy you flowers more often.”

Brain looked at him and Roger would swear his eyes were glittering. “Maybe we could buy each other flowers, every now and then?”

Roger smiled in a way he’s not sure he’s ever smiled before. “Yeah. Yes. We could do that.”

And then they both started giggling like care free school boys. 

  
  
*  
  
  
  
  
  


Brian was carrying shopping bags in both hands, weighed down with newly found treasure, where as Roger had gone for the more “hug a sack of potatoes” method of carrying his around the market. They were on the way to Roger’s car when suddenly Brian saw a stall out of the corner of his eye.

He nudged Roger with his elbow. “You continue on to the car, Rog, I just want to buy one more thing.”

Roger looked dubiously at the shopping between them. “It won’t be too big, will it? I’m not sure much more will fit between your long legs and all of this.”

Brian looked at him disparagingly. It wasn’t his fault Roger had a car incompatible with tall people. “It won’t be too big, and I won’t even go into the fact that you call yourself a car fanatic but still drive your mini everywhere.”

Roger, clearly offended on behalf of his car, gasped. “It’s inconspicuous!”

Brian laughed, at both the face and high pitched indignant tone. A Roger speciality, if there ever was one. “I’m not sure that’s the word I’d use, Rog, but okay. I’ll meet you at the car, is that alright?”

Roger agreed and, after trying but failing to take one of the shopping bags off Brian so that he had a lighter load when he bought his next item, left for the car.

Brian watched until Roger was well disappeared around the corner and turned to the florist stall over on the far corner. There was a lovely bouquet right there, yellow roses, blue forget-me-notes and some white spray, and he wanted to buy them. 

For Roger. 

He gently eased the bouquet out of the holding place and held them as he stood at the stall’s counter. “Hello, how much for these please?”

The tall, thin red haired woman wearing a green puffer jacket smiled brightly at him. She looked at the bouquet and pulled out a little colour-coded price tag it had tied around it. “Hi! That is £47.50. I only have gift boxes left, is that okay?”

Brain nodded with a smile, “Oh yes, that’s fine. Thank you.”

“Pink, Blue or Silver? Would you like a card? They’re 5p, but it can be as long as you want as long as I can write it small enough.” 

Brian shook his head, “The silver, please, but no card, thank you.”. He was amused at the idea of making Roger, with his bad eyesight, read really tiny writing only for it to be insulting. No, that would be mean… Maybe next time.

She held out her hand for the bouquet and skilfully put the box together around the flowers. “Alright then. There you go, £47.55p.”

Brian paid £48 and told her to put the change in the charity box she had by her till, and then after placing the flowers delicately on top of his shopping in the lightest bag, he set off for the car.

When he got there, Roger was leaning against it, smoking, but upon seeing him through his cigarette away, opened the passenger door and came over to help him with the shopping bags. Brian handed over the one without the flowers in, and then lifted the shopping bag over the front seat to put on the back. He put the belt around it for good measure, to save anything from spilling out of the bag should Roger had to stop suddenly. He then took the flowers out of the bag and held them as he returned the seat to it’s proper position.

“You need a hand?” Roger shouted over the car. 

Brian looked at him over the top of the car, which wasn’t hard because it was a mini. “No, no, we can get in now.”

They both got in the car, and Brian put his seat belt on as Roger checked his mirrors and looked behind him as he reversed out of the space. Brian wondered how long he could hold them in his lap before Roger looked over and noticed them. Roger launched into chatter about the pub they were going to have lunch in. “It’s one of the oldest in the country, apparently! The Inklings drank there… You know, Tolkien and his mates.”

It was when they parked up by a canal, and could see in the distance a little bridge that led to the pub when Roger finally, _finally,_ looked around at Brian and noticed the flowers in his lap. Roger gave them a double take and laughed in surprise. “Where did _they_ come from!?”

Brian chuckled. “I just bought them.”

“Wh- Oh! That’s what you went to get.”

Brian nodded. “Yeah.”

Roger looked at them properly from the driver’s seat. “They’re lovely.”

Brian handed them over. “They’re for you.”

Roger grinned and a slight flush came to his cheeks. “Wow, I- Thank you, love. I- I don’t know what to say.” Like Brian had when Roger had gotten him flowers, Roger put the flowers right up to his nose and smelt. He pulled back, a bit dazed. “Wow!” 

“You like them, then?” Brain murmured.

Roger nodded. “I love them.” Roger looked at the carpark and canal thoughtfully, and then looked at the car’s clock. “Why don’t we come back here another time, and go back to mine now? That way I can put them in a vase and save the risk of them wilting in the car whilst we eat?”

Brain was hit by a flash of guilt. “Ah, I’m sorry, I didn’t think that bit through.”

Roger shrugged, but kept smiling fondly at the flowers. “That’s alright.”

Brain pointed at the pub over the other side of the canal. “But you wanted to have lunch there.”

Roger turned to Brian, “Bri, love, the pub’s been there for a hundred years, it can wait for a couple of weeks for us to come back. It’s really alright.” He then smiled cheekily at him, “Besides, we can do some things back at mine we can’t do in the pub.”

“Ah…”

“So, we’ll go back to mine then, and come back here in a few weeks?”

Brian agreed wholeheartedly, then offered to take the flowers back, just to hold, whilst Roger drove. Roger reluctantly agreed, just because he didn’t need anything else obscuring his vision, but not before delicately brushing his hands through the petals and the spray. 

Roger smiled over at Brian and, after double checking out of both windows around him, leant over and gave Brian a kiss on the cheek. Then he continued to look out the window behind them to reverse out of the spot.

 _‘Yes,_ ’ Brain thought, _‘this flower buying thing was one of the best ideas Roger had.’_

**Author's Note:**

> This fic of course was also inspired by that photo of Brian bending over to smell the flowers in the flower bed, which can be found [here](https://rushingheadlong.tumblr.com/post/624097290758635520/brian-may-at-disneyland-in-1978-original), posted by RushingHeadlong


End file.
